


Concomitant

by CountessMillarca



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Cunningness, Dark, Drabble Sequence, F/M, Founders Era, Mind Games, One Shot, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 14:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3532100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CountessMillarca/pseuds/CountessMillarca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen."<br/>― Anaxagoras</p><p>The katabasis begins the first time she meets his eyes—Madara is falling before he knows what falling means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Concomitant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlackMajjicDuchess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackMajjicDuchess/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All credit belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.
> 
> A/N: This wasn't supposed to happen. Gods know I have like a bazillion stories to update. But I wanted to do something for a very dear friend of mine, and I didn't know what else would make her happy. I hope this will...angst-ridden thing that it is notwithstanding. This is for you, Sam. <3

Konohagakure is the leaf of peace, promise spawned out of blood-regrets and war-pains. Madara spurns change, resents assimilation. It is nothing but instinctive compulsion that forces those feelings on him. He doesn’t know how to _live—_ he doesn’t like not _knowing_. But it is better than timeless war, better than unfledged death. His clansmen whisper and hope even as they sharpen their eyes and blades. It is too early for open smiles and unwatchfulness but those will come. He _sees_. He _hears_. He _knows_.  

Hashirama will make it so. But _she_ will unmake it. Konohagakure is the apple of discord.

#

She is always the one to welcome him when he visits—but she is never welcome of his visit. Madara can read the subtle signs. His eyes map the contours of her back, the slope of her spine, the sway of her hips as she leads him inside.

“Would you like some tea, Madara-sama?”

Her voice is narcotic tones and mellisonant, as if she is taming a wild beast, and the way she pronounces that suffix is a veil of mockery. She doesn’t like him in her home, beside her husband, near her people.

Madara doesn’t like being there either.

#

Women are soft-skinned, their tongues raw honey, their eyes mirrors of things that reflect perdition. They are made for touches and words and stares...visceral traps, insidious. He hasn’t known many women to have a better comparison...but _she_ is all that and more. He sees it in the way she bends her waist when she serves him tea, the way she slants her neck when she speaks his name, that flutter of thick lashes, that cat-curling of red lips. Her manner is polite, distant, wary. She never meets his eyes.

Madara avoids her eyes as much as she does his.

#

The katabasis begins the first time she meets his eyes. _He_ hasn’t meant for it to happen. It merely does. Perhaps it is fate preordained, karmic infliction for horrors inflicted unto others, sin bestowed upon him for sins inextirpable. He has too many to count. It lasts no longer than one flap of hummingbird wings—but it is _more than_ _enough_. He has never seen such eyes...naked shadow, pitiless void. They are depthless, pupiless chaos of murmurs and snares. They can swallow and shackle creatures of the darkest nature. _Like him_.

Madara is falling before he knows what falling means.

#

His visits become more frequent, more lasting. She never turns him away, bends and twists and smiles as if it is natural. _It_ _isn’t_. Her vocal cords constrict unnaturally around his name. His presence is an aberration, a stain she wishes to erase. He knows...but it does nothing to stop him. His eyes linger on the arch of her neck, delicate curve and hints of fragile skin. He wants to take that throat between his teeth, soft flesh bitten, ravaged. _How_ will she speak his name if he does that? _What_ sound will she make if she can’t speak?

#

The anabasis begins the last time she meets his eyes. _She_ has meant for it to happen. It is calculated and more than a little vicious. Cruel pleasure and overexposure. Neck bared, cunningly offered, inches and inches of peach-smooth skin. His eyes trail over the swells of her breasts, the juts of her collarbone, the hollows of her neck. He tastes the pulse that beats beneath them, luring for lips and tongue and teeth— _urging_. He knows then it is time to _stop_...or lick and tease and bite into her.

Madara is rising before he knows what rising means.

#

The man chosen as the Shodai Hokage is an antinomy of himself.

“Must you do this, Madara?” Hashirama’s voice is a dichotomy of sound, splitting into two wills, the harshest and softest tones he has ever spoken. “It’s not too late.”

Hashirama wants to save him as much as he mustn’t. Madara spins the words in his mind once, twice.

“Not too late...” The meaning is discrepant when he says it. Bitterly true. “Yes. I must.”

He smiles, but it is smeared with that bitter truth, and if Hashirama knows, it will become more bitter.

“Because it’s not too late.”


End file.
